You may have read recently that Illinois is making changes to its “proficiency cut scores” in reading and math. We’ve heard questions and concerns from many parents about what this means for their students, and the State Board of Education kindly agreed to share their plan and rationale with us in a virtual meeting on June 26 from 3:30 – 4:30pm.
Hosted by the Illinois Early Literacy Coalition, Everyone Reading Illinois, and Stand for Children you can find a recording of the meeting here!
Illinois has a Literacy Plan. Now what?
The Illinois Early Literacy Coalition’s Summer Planning Summit is happening in Chicago on June 20 to map out the literacy coalition’s goals for the next three years. There is SO MUCH left to do to ensure every Illinois student has access to the evidence-based literacy instruction they need to become a strong reader.
We don’t have a mandate, so we need an urgent, exciting, winning effort to drive this to every district in Illinois. We need to use the resources we’ve got – philanthropy, parents, professional credibility, and more – to move the needle. Join us to kick off a year of action and impact!
We hope you’ll join us next month for in-person planning, strategizing, and networking!
Are you wondering how to help your child maintain their literacy skills this summer? Maybe you’ve been searching for that one hack that will help your early reader thrive. Well, we have the event for you! Join the Illinois Early Literacy Coalition’s June Literacy Lounge to discover what it takes to learn to read, including what parents, caregivers, and community volunteers can do to support emerging readers while school is out.
This event is open to anyone interested in learning more about early literacy instruction – we hope you’ll join us on June 11!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Mea Anderson | [email protected]
(Springfield) — “When the Illinois Early Literacy Coalition saw results from a study last year that found Illinois to be among three states that had recovered from pandemic learning loss in reading, we wanted to know more about what was happening in classrooms,” said Barb Cohen, Policy Associate with the Legal Council for Health Justice and co-chair of the Illinois Early Literacy Coalition’s Policy Committee. Illinois adopted its first-ever state literacy plan last year, but without any mandates on school districts, the question remained about what schools were actually doing to drive improvement.
With that goal in mind, the committee began digging into that recovery data and reaching out to several districts whose English Language Arts scores had bounced back according to that analysis. New state report card data also came out amid these interviews, so committee members reached out to several other districts that saw steep gains in literacy scores as well.
Six districts agreed to share their literacy stories: Cicero SD 99, CUSD 200 (Wheaton), Morton Grove SD 70, Peoria SD 150, Rockford SD 205, and Sesser-Valier CUSD 196. These span from southern Illinois to the northern suburbs, from those with significant bilingual population to those with virtually none. Some are deeply underfunded, while others are better off. The smallest has just over 500 students and the largest just under 30,000.
“All these districts had a valuable tale to tell and, despite their differences, many of the changes fell into similar categories,” said Dr. Courtney Ratliff, a school psychologist with the organization Science of Reading Illinois, who also serves as committee co-chair. “The paper groups them into buckets we call ‘The 5 C’s: Collaboration, Coaching, Coherence, Continuous Improvement, and Calendar.’”
“This project was intended to bridge the gap between reading research and practice so we can learn from educators who decided to do something different for the students they serve. Implementation can be messy, and system change is hard, but we must do that work so we can get better literacy results for our children,” added Dr. Tinaya York, a former principal, instructional coach, owner of Literacy for Life, and member of the committee.
“Many other states have prescribed specific mandates around foundational literacy screening and instruction, but Illinois has focused its efforts on developing comprehensive guidance and encouraging change aligned to reading research and evidence,” said Dr. Shannon Hammond, an Assistant Professor of Special Education and member of the committee. “We hope other school leaders and policymakers will benefit from learning about the implementation work schools in Illinois are undertaking to improve literacy.”
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The Illinois Early Literacy Coalition includes individual and organizational supporters from across Illinois who believe the literacy crisis is urgent and solvable. We strive to improve public policy and funding to better align teacher and administrator preparation, professional development, curricula, and other supports with evidence-based instructional practices.
Illinois has made great strides toward improving our literacy rates and ensuring all students have access to evidence-based literacy instruction, but our work is not done! In order for students to receive quality instruction, their teachers must have access to quality, research-aligned professional development. Help us make that a reality by submitting a witness slip in favor of HB 1368 (Faver Dias/Lightford), a bill that would require any professional development related to English Language Arts to be aligned with the Comprehensive Literacy Plan for grades PreK-12.
Witness slips are a great way to show support for a bill as it goes before a legislative committee, and they only take 3 – 5 minutes to complete! Here’s how to do it:
Thank you for helping bring Illinois one step closer to having evidence-based literacy instruction in every classroom!
Happy Banned Book Day! Today we celebrate our right to read and double down on our effort to protect that freedom for the next generation. Our freedom to read depends on both access to books, and access to literacy.
Share how your access to books and access to literacy made you the critical-thinking, informed, and empathetic human being you are today.
Both of those are being challenged.
The first – access to books – is overtly contested through orchestrated efforts to ban thought-provoking literature. Illinoisans are fortunate that our state policy leaders enacted a first-in-the-nation model law to stop book bans in public libraries. But that doesn’t make local school boards immune from instituting their own book bans – like Just Mercy in Yorkville, The Hate U Give in ROWVA, and numerous titles in Genoa-Kingston.
The second – access to literacy – is a long-standing, systemic problem that leaves about one-third of Illinois’ students reading below a Basic level. It’s not the fault of any school board, parent, educator, or policymaker, but it is the social justice issue of our time and an absolute imperative to tackle – with all hands-on deck. Illinois is making some inroads in this area, but we need advocates like you to expand access for all Illinois students.
If you want to join the fight, join us in the Illinois Early Literacy Coalition. And for extra credit, tell us why the freedom to read matters to you and your family.
Thank you for standing up for the right to read!
The Illinois State Board of Education has released its second draft of the comprehensive statewide literacy plan! (Read it here) The Illinois Early Literacy Coalition conferred with lots of members and experts and developed this memo with feedback on the plan. Illinois is moving off the sidelines and this plan is the first step. It’s not perfect and it won’t solve the problem, but it is a strong foundation on which to build. We are grateful that ISBE has devoted so much staff capacity and passion into this work.
The Illinois Early Literacy Coalition drafted a response to the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) literacy plan.
Let’s do better by our teachers – and in turn, all children. Please sign this petition and share it widely.
To the Illinois State Board of Education:
We are parents, educators, civil rights advocates, and community members who share the belief that every child in Illinois deserves equitable access to high-quality literacy instruction, and every teacher deserves access to high-quality training and curricular materials to support that instruction. A recent national report that found most of the reviewed Illinois educator preparation programs neglect critical elements of reading instruction and persist in including instruction in debunked practices has left us outraged, disheartened, and motivated to demand change.
The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has failed in its responsibility to rigorously monitor and assess the course content offered by Educator Prep Programs, thus depriving countless educators of the quality education they deserve. We, those who count on the devoted and professional educators who teach our children, demand accountability and immediate action to rectify this situation.
Those who choose to dedicate themselves to teaching invest significant time and money to attend an ISBE-approved program. They deserve to know that ISBE’s stamp of approval means that program is aligned to ISBE’s literacy standards, which are widely recognized as high-quality. But this report shows a deep disconnect between ISBE’s standards and the course content in many accredited Illinois programs.
It is a new day at ISBE, with a new State Superintendent, several new board members, and a new focus on literacy outcomes. We call on you to leverage your authority in program approval to ensure educator preparation programs offer high-quality, comprehensive literacy content aligned to ISBE’s standards, and cease teaching instructional methods that have been scientifically debunked.
Sincerely,
